disrupting myself, or the jump from Product Marketing to Product Management

Product Manager Day 133: Of small wins and just-enough planning

Thoughts for the day:We’re not there, but at least we’re not as terrible as I think… When a user says “this is better than what I was using in my previous company”, it’s comforting. I’d rather they be delighted, but it’s important to celebrate the small wins.

Overthinking can be unproductive. One day the product will probably need to do this or that… with potential impact to how things are being or should be done today. Won’t that mean double-work? What if we need to rebuild from the ground up? Thinking this way can be paralyzing e.g. Maybe we should wait until we know exactly how this product is going to be used in one year’s time. This is exactly what agile development avoids. You don’t build aimlessly without a medium to long-term direction and Product Strategy, but you also build for the now. But…

Reboot? Maybe the product was trying to cover too many purposes. Now though, it’s struggling to fulfill just two. Do you cut away the other stuff that might be useful in the future?

I jumped from Product Marketing to Product Management at Zalora recently. These posts represent a journal of my learnings and reflections – you can keep track of my journey by joining the mailing list here.